Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM and Quantum, the LTO Program Technology Provider Companies (TPCs), released the specifications of LTO Ultrium generation 9 format. They are now available for licensing.

The LTO Ultrium format is an adaptable open tape format innovated and continually improved upon by tech giants Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, IBM Corporation and Quantum LTO Holdings, LLC. It was designed to help address increasing demands of data protection in the midrange to enterprise-class server environments. LTO 9 is the next generation of this ultra-high capacity tape storage product. It is designed to provide amazing performance, capacity and reliability combining the advantages of linear multi-channel, bi-directional formats with enhancements in servo technology, data compression, track layout, and error correction.

The LTO Program has historically offered several different license packages – from enhanced packages that provide the specifications and licenses to manufacture LTO Ultrium products, to basic packages providing LTO format specifications.

The LTO Ultrium format has a well-defined roadmap for growth and scalability. The roadmap represents intentions and goals only and is subject to change or withdrawal. There is no guarantee that these goals will be achieved. The roadmap is intended to outline a general direction of technology and should not be relied upon in making a purchasing decision. Format compliance verification is vital to meet the free-interchange objectives that are at the core of the LTO Program. Ultrium tape mechanism and tape cartridge interchange specifications are available on a licensed basis.

LTO generation 9 tapes and drives are engineered to boost tape cartridge capacity from the previous generation(LTO 8.) With astonishing capacities of up to 45TB* per cartridge of compressed data.

Quantum has announced that LTO Ultrium format generation 9 technology will be available in its Scalar-i6 and Scalar i6000 tape libraries, and StorNext-AEL archive systems beginning in December 2020.

New LTO generation 9 specs include full backward read and write compatibility with LTO generation 8 cartridges. LTO generation 9 specifications have previously introduced features, for example multi-layer security support via hardware-based encryption, WORM (Write-Once, Read-Many) functionality and support for Linear Tape File System (LTFS).

LTO media has doubled in capacity abaout every 2.3 years since its inception twenty years ago. LTO generation 9 elected to balance the cost and benefit of technology by offering an 18TB tape cartridge, doubling its capacity from the previous generation. According to the INSIC tape technology roadmap, tape technology has the potential to meet robust capacity predictions over the next decade. It shows a clear advantage to HDD technologies. LTO and enterprise tape drives operate at areal densities that are about two orders of magnitude less than the latest HDD. This means it is possible to continue increasing capacity of tape technology at historical rates for at least the next 10 years.

LTO-9 tape is able to reach the same capacity with only 1/85th of the areal density than that of same capacity hard disk. Tape has much more recoding area compared to disk and is able to grow in the years to come, according to INSIC. The combination of tape area and the ability to increase areal densities is the reason why tape will continue its 40%/year capacity growth.

“Given its long history of use and a solid path for future innovation, tape still has a significant role to play in the modern data center and in hybrid topologies,” says Christophe Bertrand, senior analyst at ESG. “Tape’s role is shifting, which further enhances its value. Other than archiving massive data sets for active archives or longer retention at low cost, tape has the ability to create an isolated and ‘air-gapped’ layer. This emerging use case is perfect for keeping data out of reach of cyber-attackers.”

The latest generation of LTO tape technology, LTO generation 8, supports tape cartridge storage compressed capacity of up to 30TB*.

To learn more about LTO technology, visit TapeandMedia.com.